Lasting First Impressions
by davinci333
Summary: Ever wondered what Cameron might have experienced at her interview for the diagnostics team? Here's a take on what might have transpired... leans very much towards HouseCameron


**Author's Note**: So...This is my first stab at posting fanfic, so (m)any reviews would be completely awesome! I hope you enjoy, and I hope that _I_ make a lasting first impression! ;)

**Disclaimer**: I don't own House, PPTH, Wilson, Cameron, the red coffe mug, or the giant tennis ball, or anything else from the wonderful world of House. I'd like to, but alas, not all of us are that lucky.

_**Lasting First Impressions**_

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"Next victim please!" Shouted a gruff voice that she could hear clearly from where she sat, ten metres or so from the glass-encased office with the drawn blinds. Craning her neck as the door opened, she saw two men gesturing in what seemed to be angrily to each other as the rejected applicant left the office and another walked timidly in.

_Poor thing!_ She thought to herself as the young blond female doctor shuffled away quickly, wiping a frustrated tear from her cheek. She looked back, and saw that the two men must have agreed on something, because the mad gesticulating had stopped, and another interview had already commenced.

She recognized the tall dark haired one as James Wilson; she had listened to some of his presentations at the last oncology conference she attended during her residency. He was pacing and shaking his head, and then flopped into a chair next to the desk where the other man sat smirking at him.

_So that is the infamous Gregory House._ She mused, staring in through the glass door. She watched as he continued to ignore the applicant that sat in front of him, no doubt listing off their various qualifications while he nonchalantly and repeatedly tossed an oversized tennis ball in the air and caught it. He glanced out the door, and their gazes met.

She continued to hold her eyes locked with his, and the smirk faded slightly from his face as he saw she wasn't going to turn away like most of the others. His smirk turned into what could only be described as a devilish grin, and he turned back to the dithering young bespectacled male doctor in front of him. _Uh oh. I'm in for it!_ She thought as she saw him stand and virtually shoo the applicant away from him and out the door.

As it opened, she heard House's voice shout, "No, no, _no_! I am not hiring someone who can't even speak two sentences without putting 'um' between every other word! Get out! Go teach gym, or read a book or something. Just go away!" Looking stunned, the doctor almost ran from the office.

As she looked back at the pair, Dr. Wilson was sitting with his head in his hands, and Dr. House was continuing to relay another gesticulating rant one-sided to him from his desk.

_Okay, it's go time! You can do this!_ She repeated as a sort of mantra in her mind as she stood and smoothed out her grey-blue skirt all in the same motion. She grabbed her purse, squared her shoulders and walked towards the office.

"I can't do this anymore, Wilson! I'm sick of all these-"

As she opened the door, House stopped mid-sentence. Wilson looked up to see what could have brought such silence upon his companion, and couldn't help but smile.

She sat in the chair in front of the messy desk that was at the near end of the office, strewn with files and papers and unopened envelopes. Her eyes met with House's again, and she was startled by the intense blue wells that matched her gaze. She folded her hands in her lap, and smiled a small, confident smile at him. He narrowed his eyes slightly at this, and looked down at the file in front of him.

"Dr. Allison Cameron. Internship at the mayo clinic, near the top of your class since grade school, blah, blah, blah. Why should I hire you?"

Taken slightly aback by his bluntness, she blinked, took a deep breath, and nervously began,

"Well, for one thing I can string sentences together without a single 'um' involved, so I'm pretty sure I have at least one up on the last guy that was in here."

She saw in the corner of her eye that Wilson glanced at House and shook his head in an amused sort of way, covering a smile with his hand. Feeling a bit more confident, she continued, meeting House's gaze squarely as the words began to flow out of her, pleased that he was actually paying attention to her.

"I believe that your team wouldn't be complete without the insight and knowledge that I have to offer, and I think that you need me more than you realize considering you have no other females on your team. I can bring a perspective to differentials and patient care that I doubt your team thus far would even dream of."

She paused, waiting for the inevitable events of his interruption of her little speech, and her expulsion from the office. Neither one came. Instead she only received that deep stare from icy depths; she could practically see the unspoken thoughts whizzing by behind his pupils, giving her the impression of vast intelligence and an intuitive nature, both completely unabated. When his thoughts reached some sort of conclusion, and he realized she was still meeting him with her bright, ever-revealing green eyes, his head tilted to the side and his eyes studied her for a moment like a puzzle. Then he raised his eyebrows and looked to Wilson before asking her flat out,

"So, Dr. Cameron… what's a beautiful, young, and suspiciously overconfident woman like you doing working in a hospital? Couldn't you be off modeling with the other food-deprived girls your age, or hangin' at the mall somewhere; cruising on a yacht with your millionaire husband? Or is there more to you behind all this glitter and pretence?"

Clenching her jaw slightly, Cameron held her ground, to her own pleasant surprise. "As a matter of fact, I'm going there right after this to sip lattes and try on pair after pair of shoes and constantly bitch about how overweight I am." Her voice dripping with newfound sarcasm halted for a moment when she remembered she was being interviewed for a new job, but at the look of self-satisfied gloating on House's face, she continued at full-steam. "And yeah, I could be off modeling somewhere. Everyone assumes that's all I can do just because I look the way I do," –she makes a sweeping motion with her hands to illustrate her point and house follows their movements exactly – "but I'm sorry if I choose to have more of a purpose than to sit like a pretty doll on a shelf somewhere. I'm a doctor. I have a brain, a brain that I actually use. And that, Dr. House, is why instead of gracing the cover of whatever swimsuit catalogue you drool over in your spare time I choose to help people and save lives, and yes, I look damn good while I'm doing it, too!"

She stopped, realizing she was almost shouting at the man in front of her, who would in essence decide if she got the job or not. Her will to fight deflated, and angry scowl reduced to a sheepish half-grin, Cameron thought she was a gonner. As House's feet slid off his desk (taking a file with it) and he stared at her file with a small smile gracing his features, she looked over to see Wilson staring at her with a surprised look which one could only describe as "deeply impressed".

"You…are hired, Dr. Cameron." Said House slowly as if he could hardly believe the words were coming from his mouth. "You start tomorrow."

He picked up his cane that had been hung on the edge of his desk until now and peered at it thoughtfully, glancing in her direction as she got up to leave.

She returned the glance, and said "thank you," with a mix of confusion and relief. For a moment she saw something else flash in the ever-churning thought whirlwind behind his blue eyes; resignation and contentment, or simply him admitting defeat to his new subordinate. She would never know which reason, but as she walked from the office, she couldn't shake the image of his icy stare from her thoughts along with the puzzling question she was asking herself, _wow...since when am I that sarcastic? This is going to be an interesting fellowship_.

She stopped halfway down the hall to the elevator when she heard him call after her, "I hope you can make coffee better than the imcompetent lump that does it now! I'm sick of drinking caffeine-flavoured sludge!"

She turned and smiled, arching her eyebrow and as a result eliciting an almost Housian smirk, she shook her head, rolled her eyes, and turned back to the waiting elevator.

As she disappeared from view, House ran his hand over his face in an exhausted manor, stroking his stubbly chin while still deep in thought after this last interview.

Wilson broke the silence, seeing the look on House's face. "Hah! Oh, you are _so_ screwed, House!" Laughing and shaking his head he smiled wryly as House sighed and answered quietly in a very un-House-like way, still remembering the fire in those green orbs as she defiantly challenged his snarks, "…I know."

FIN

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